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Friday, 19 February 2016

Crooked Heart

Lissa Evans’ “Crooked Heart” is a
startlingly funny odd-couple story set against the backdrop of World War II
London. It follows Noel Bostock, a ten-year-old orphan being raised by his
anti-authoritarian suffragette godmother, Mattie. She isn’t a particularly
affectionate woman, but she does adore him and maintains his education from
home. As the novel begins, Mattie is suffering from dementia’s rapid
disintegration and refuses to acknowledge the steady arrival of war.

Noel is incapable of relating to
his peers, having spent most of his life in the company of a bookishly
independent woman. He is a solemn little boy, with a gimpy leg and a tendency
toward spending his time alone with books or writing about his peers in a
self-made code. As Mattie’s condition worsens and the war grows closer to
home, he is evacuated to a small city north-northwest of London, and is taken
in by a poor thirty-six year old widow, Vee Sedge. Vee lives with a silent
mother and unappreciative son, both of whom are completely oblivious to how
much effort she has put into sustaining them. She moves from a get-rich-quick
scheme to factory work with no real luck, and for her money has always been
elusive and difficult to keep. She is considered too and lacking the finesse
her latest scheme requires.

Noel invites himself along on one
of her cross-London schemes and Vee realizes how much help the clever,
organized young boy can actually be. But Blitz-era London can be a very
dangerous place, and Noel’s imagination and lack of life experience lead him
and Vee on a strange and occasionally violent journey.

This book combines a brilliantly
dark wit with memorable, endearing characters and by the end I found myself
rooting for the two of them despite (or perhaps because of) their various,
well-developed flaws. The burgeoning friendship between Noel and Vee never
feels forced or trite, instead Evans allows it to flourish in a way that makes
sense for each character. The humour throughout is steady and constant, never
over the top but serving instead as a heartbeat that twines itself through the
ridiculousness of their circumstances.